IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] comparison

IBM and OpenText are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 79% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

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652 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Read 48 OpenText Service Manager [EOL] reviews

79% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and OpenText Service Manager [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Help Desk Software

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (28th)

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Klemen Muhvič

Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.

Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team

What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.

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MEKKAB Raouf

Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy

Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities

We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"The solution has been stable."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"The solution is simple to set up."

"Service Manager gives us a single system where everything is centralized in one base."

"The workflow engine that standardizes and globalizes the process steps. It drives people through the process by standardization and automation."

"We can have all our requests and incidents registered in one system."

"Its flexibility and ease of customization are its most valuable features."

"It's mostly so reliable and has a lot of functionality. We're using a lot of HPE tools and we can do a lot with it. So, its functionality is the most valuable feature."

"Technical support is pretty good."

"The design has been revamped in terms of GUI. The current interface is quite easy to read."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] pros

Cons

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"The product's technical support services need improvement."

"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."

"There's a lot of manual work, which is error prone and time consuming, in how the code gets transported from one system to the other."

"It, still, has a bit of more of improvement possibilities in the codeless part. But, I can see that they are working on it, so that's quite good as well."

"Their end-user interface and technical support features could be improved."

"I think one area which is the most painful from my point of view is if you need to integrate a lot of the tools, and being able to make that a lot more seamless."

"I don't see anything lacking."

"Service Manager is at the end of its life. The architecture, performance, and look are all way behind."

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."

"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."

"The license is not cheap."

"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."

"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

19%

Performing Arts

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	38

Comparisons

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Compared 22% of the time

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 18% of the time

Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 17% of the time

ConnectWise PSA vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 15% of the time

Ameyo Fusion CX vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 15% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

ServiceNow vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 37% of the time

OpenText Service Management (SMAX) vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 34% of the time

TOPdesk vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

Compared 29% of the time

More OpenText Service Manager [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

December 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]

December 2025

Download OpenText Service Manager [EOL] product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager

Overview

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

Service Manager on SaaS provides you with a cloud-based, industry leading IT Service Management solution.

OpenText

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

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